Still practising at 90

There was a quote I read today where the legendary cellist Pablo Casals was asked why he continued to practice at age 90. He replied, “because I think I’m making progress”.

Our lives are not a series of one-off things that we do for a little bit and then stop. It is a journey and an adventure, where we continue in the moment to take steps and there does not have to be a final destination. We are obsessed with a start and an end. An art is, whatever your thing is, is for life.

We can always learn and get even better, of course, it is not about perfection, it is about continuing the exploration of our ‘art’, whatever that is. It could be making cakes, writing a book, painting, building a house, teaching, training or playing the cello. It is all an art and each one of us has a unique gift…a gift that we can give away to the world if we choose to.

We are all artists and the joy is in the continual practice and exploration of our unique gift…sharing our light for others takes practice, even at 90.

Give it a go

We fear doing something because we say ‘what if it goes wrong?’ or ‘I might mess it up’.

However, there are two things, if we do mess it up there is the learning that comes from messing it up. Secondly, every single moment in life is a new beginning, the never ending ‘now’ moment.

Messed it up, no bother do it again or take a different path, choose a new option, whatever. It just doesn’t matter, we’re only here once, just give a go.